


If I could start again

by DeathStarryNight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universes, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo is a Mess, F/M, Redeemed Ben Solo, Space and Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 19:16:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathStarryNight/pseuds/DeathStarryNight
Summary: Ben knows he screwed things up.  What he doesn't know is how to fix it.  He dies in one life and wakes in another.  Over and over again, he chases her, chases Rey.  One day, maybe, he will learn his lesson and find her.In a hundred lifetimes, in a thousand years, Rey and Ben find their way back to each other.If I could start again,a million miles away,I will keep myself,I would find a way.





	If I could start again

Ben Solo dies on a battlefield, a blue-bladed lightsaber through his heart.  A tear-stained face all he can see.  Her hands tremble around the saber.  He can feel her conflicted heart through the bond they still share.  It didn’t have to happen this way.  He knew that.  He had driven her to this mess.  No one but him.  The regret lingers like the whisper of metal on his tongue.  His vision darkens.

_I’ll get it right next time_ , he promises her silently.  _I’ll find a way._

Ben Solo wakes in another life, wearing a different face.  Barely clinging to the memories of his past life.  But still, he wakes.  He dies and he lives and he dies and he lives.  Sometimes she is there, sometimes he searches for his whole life to come up empty.  A hundred lifetimes, a thousand.

He doesn’t always recognize her.  It varies in every lifetime, in every new instance.  Sometimes it happens right away, the first time he lays his eyes on her.  Other times, it’s only at the end.  The worst times are when its too late and she’s dying in his arms or leaving again for the last time.

Sometimes, he thinks, the universe is punishing him.  For the throne room, for the first life he lived and the first mistakes he made.  Every time he recognizes her, it all comes rushing back, each time there are more lives and more chances.  But it always goes back to the throne room.

He sliced his master in half for her.  And for the first time he tasted freedom, his thoughts were his own.  He fought back to back with her against the Praetorians.  They moved seamlessly.  She gave him her lightsaber, trusted him with that much.  And he’d ruined it. Because what did he have to give her to exchange for everything she’d have to leave behind?  The promise of an empire she didn’t want?  He knows that was where he’d gone wrong, but he doesn’t yet know what would have been right. 

 He learns more about her too, in every life, in every iteration.  Maybe, he thinks, maybe he’ll remember the next time before it’s too late.  He never does.

The first time he recognizes her, he’s hanging off the edge of a cliff and she’s reaching for him.  The memories hit him all at once, the fire raining down around them and the butchered body of Snoke on the floor.  The images mirror each other in his mind, but this time, she’s the one reaching.

“Don’t let go,” she calls to him, straining too far to reach his failing hand.  But, try as he might, his fingers slip and he falls, calling her name awash in their memories.

_I’ll get it right next time,_ he promises her before his body hits the ground.

He recognizes her at once when he sees her again at a party.  She’s wearing a mask over half her face, but it’s her eyes that trigger the rush of memories.  She smiles at him.  This time, he thinks, they’ll win.  She’ll run away with him and leave behind everything pulling them apart.  And it almost does, they almost make it, despite the feud between their families.  But he finds her dead in her tomb and drinks the poison with no thought besides his refusal to live without her in this life too.  As he gasps out his last breath, she wakes, and he regrets his choice.  When, he thinks as he’s pulled away again and she reaches for his sword, when will it work out?

The next time it does work out, in a way.  He’s as far gone as he ever as been, though, and doesn’t deserve the beautiful governess that suddenly appears in his life.  But he tries.  He wakes up one morning to find her gone because of his lies.  But he doesn’t truly recognize _Rey_ until she returns to him in the same life.  He can’t see the hazel eyes this time.  He lost his own sight in a fire for his mistakes.  He does recognize the touch of her hand and the sound of her voice.  Nothing else matters because she stays with him, broken and bleeding as he is.  Maybe he needs to lose everything to have her.  He would.  Force, he would.

He’s drawn to her again when he’s a noble in a manor house, lonely and angry at the world.  He calls her plain first and realizes his mistake second with the sharp retort on her tongue.  But he only puts the pieces together when she’s standing in the rain rejecting him.  God, that feels familiar.  He can’t blame her.  Especially now that he’s sure only he can remember all the other times he’s failed her in other lives.  Or maybe she does remember.  Maybe they’re both swimming in memories.  Maybe they always will be.

Sometimes they’re kings, sometimes farmers.  The time and place are never the same, as if their story must play out in every generation, everywhere across the stars.

So, this is eternal damnation, he thinks.

He likes it best when he realizes it early.  Sometimes then he can make her stay.  Those are the best times, but they always come back to haunt him next time when he fails.

Once, she has magic thrumming through her veins and a striped tie around her neck.  He’s too far gone to turn back when he remembers, but they fight the darkness side-by-side again in a torturous echo.  He doesn’t even regret it when he dies again.

_I’ll get it right soon,_ he promises her.  _One day, I will_.

They face the end of the world back-to-back.  As he holds her lifeless body and greets death like comfort, he wonders if this is the last time, the final end.  It’s not.  He wakes up again in another life.  Why are they always fighting?

He loses track of the hundred lifetimes he’s lived.  He can’t remember how many times he’s lost her.  He leaves another life behind on a burning battlefield. 

And opens his eyes in an elevator.  Rey is there, cuffs on her wrists and urgent sincerity in her eyes.  He recognizes this scene.  He’s seen it a hundred times before.

“You will not bow before Snoke,” she tells him, declares for him.  Claims him.  This time, he knows it’s true.  “You’ll turn.  I’ll help you.”

Ben Solo lets the same words leave his lips as the last time he stood in that elevator.  The scene plays out again, in front of him now instead of in his mind.  Her screams, the shock on Snoke’s face as the wrong blade ignites, her hand on his waist.

They stand in a burning throne room again, but this time he knows what to do.  He’s had a hundred lifetimes to think about it.  He knows now with utter certainty that the universe wasn’t punishing him.  It was teaching him.

“Ben?” she hesitates.  He does not.

“Rey,” he says, turning to her, holding out the saber she trusted him with.  “I want you to join me.  It’s time for us to take down the First Order.”

She takes the saber and his hand.

Ben Solo doesn’t die on a battlefield in this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I wrote this a while ago in a burst of inspiration and am just now getting around to posting it.


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